Sha's POV
The next day's breakfast consisted of hot chicken, seafood noodles and various Filipino breads and pastries. Choco German bread became my favourite. We had some tea and coffee, as well as, of course, water. After that, by 9:20 a.m., we all went to Gaisano Grand Mall Antique in the near southeastern part of town, where the rural plains of Hamtic were just a few kilometers away after the Robinson Antique. The cramped tricycles provided less comfort but were practical, and their fares were cheap.
The interior was nice, and the air conditioning was nice and cool. We traversed around the two-story mall and did some shopping for cheap stuff (we might need to purchase a box as a reverse balikbayan box for our new stuff and souvenirs that might not fit in our baggage or were too bulky to carry in our bags). Hoshi purchased a new agenda journal for this year; his intention was not to make schedules, but to make entries and write ideas in it. It seemed that the agenda format was his personal aesthetic, I guessed.
Bokuto also had one in red, and so was Taro with a black one.
Saki and Reo also added cheap clothes.
For snacks this morning, we opted for snacks at the food court on the first floor next to the supermarket.
We had chats with locals who went through more than 3 years with the mall being rebuilt after the fire in 2021.
By noon, we rode another batch of tricycles (because there were many) to Robinson Antique in the southeastern part of town. There it was, bigger than the Gaisano Grand Mall Antique, and it had three floors. Entering, we did another round of adventure, going around. Though this time, we planned to have lunch at a Greenwich restaurant next to the escalators, across from the department store, and on the first floor. We ate pizza, some fried chicken and rice this time.
After that, we purchased some Filipino snacks from a stand that sells them.
I was curious about their rice wine and turmeric tea, so I wanted to try them out once we returned to our hotel rooms by 1 p.m. afternoon.
There, I did so with hotel-provided cups and hot water. The taste was stunning; I was used to matcha tea with Kurou-sama. But a change in drink was a good one for me.
3 p.m. came, and we had a jeepney ride to the River Esplanade (a river park) north of San Jose within Barangay San Pedro and north of the main highway that was somehow popular for traffic to the north in Belison and beyond north via Barangay San Pedro. The sun was setting, and the heat was almost right. The River Esplanade was stunning. There were lots of stalls selling food and drinks. I saw that most of them sold French Fries in plastic cups. I thought fries belonged to fast-food chains, but here in this country, they were sold in stalls alongside kikiam and fish balls. That was surprising.
And so, we sat down to enjoy the river view and ate some of these delicious and cheap snacks.
The shadows of the LRT Depot case in Quezon City were fading more and more.